Friday, May 30, 2008

Touching the stove with REED...

I have that nagging feeling that I'm about to do something absolutely. fucking. stupid. I'm setting up an OCO bracket on a penny stock, complete with an idiotic trailing stop. Issue: Trailing stops won't trigger properly with such low market volatility. Issue: I don't want to set a simple sell limit, in case it maintains upwards momentum. Issue: I won't be babysitting the order at all. Issue: I'm completely stupid.

Order:
BUY +1000 REED @2.35 LMT GTC WHEN REED MARK AT OR BELOW 2.35
SELL -1000 REED TRSTP MARK-.05 MARK GTC TRG BY #4510 OCO #47304511 WHEN REED MARK AT OR ABOVE 2.60
SELL -1000 REED STP 1.05 GTC TRG BY #4510 OCO #4511

Wish me luck. Watch what happens to $2,350 worth of cash here, eh? My emergency stop is set damn low, below its 52-week low of $1.50, but it hit that only two months ago. It spiked shortly after, saw by some as a great price I'm sure, but has steadily slumped back into the $2.30 range.

Still, the bounce of this stock is impressive: from $2.25 to $2.85 in about a week.

Let's see what happens.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

What's up with Berkshire...

I exited Berkshire Hathaway about a month ago because I was growing impatient and liked to see more movement. Ironically, I'm now trending towards more medium-termed plays, but I'm looking out for short-term/day-trades that will work, too.

Berkshire slammed down into the $4,035 range last Thursday, a support that it had broached the Friday before that before rebounding about $90. It's a pretty clearly established support; it hasn't dipped (more than 1%) below $3,900 since it first passed that point August 20th, 2007.

Clearly, a lot of people are recognizing it as a good time to average in for the long haul. BRK/B hit $5,059 in early December but started to slide real fast from that resistance point. It's probably closer to it's market-based "intrinsic value" at the near $4,400 mark, but I think it could easily continue on upward and break $4,600 next week. I'm not putting my money where my mouth is, but let's just watch what happens over the next week or two.

Things have been very busy at work, but I'll be getting back into this more and more over the next couple of weeks, as I'm consolidating my Scottrade and Thinkorswim portfolios. (I work at Phoenix, Arizona Web Development firm Synapse Studios as my day job. See my blog there.)

Thursday, May 22, 2008

MOS hurts, TSRA heals...



So MOS shot back up, but my stops triggered properly and it only hurt me something like $40 or $60. Or something.

I initiated a fun TSRA play last night:
BUY +250 TSRA MARK+.10 WHEN TSRA MARK AT OR BELOW 18.55
I've stopped setting flat out limit purchases. The common wisdom is to never buy at MARK but to always place a limit order and wait for the market to come to you. Anything else is chasing and can be real trouble; you can almost always get a better price.

With a stock as volatile as TSRA, though, if it starts the day by shooting straight on down, it can be painful.

Say TSRA opens at 19. You have every intention to buy at 18.75. The market opens and it plunges downward, to 18.75, where your LIMIT order triggers. It then continues on its downward march to 18.35, before turning around. Here's the issue: Every penny below your purchase price is a penny you must now make back UP in order to come close to profitability.

One defense against this is the trailing stop on the BUY side with a threshold trigger. I set a trailing stop of 10 cents, only once it hit 18.55. What this means is that I can expect to pay no more than 18.65. But what it further means is that if TSRA is intent on tanking early on, I won't buy into a downtrend. My trailing stop will follow it on down, until the momentum shifts by 10 cents.

Now, on a very volatile stock with considerable spikes and lags, you can easily have a stock drop 40 cents, gain the 10 cents needed to trigger your buy order, and then promptly resuming its demise. I've had this happen. Twice. It then promptly ran into my STOP and sold me out, causing me to loose twice in a row. Things to carefully consider then: set your trailing stop level at something intelligent, based on a stock's tendency to spike and lag and its typical volatility. Truthfully, 10 cents is probably too anemic, but going much higher than that results in lost profitability; every cent the stock has to regain before you buy in is a cent you don't earn profit on.

Further, set your emergency stop further out. I should've had mine at 17, but I figured 18 wasn't going to happen. I was very, very wrong. And sad.

Yesterday, the stock started at 18.69 and started its way on down. It hit a day low of 18.33 before turning sharply and heading on up. It gained 10 cents and my trailing stop triggered in and I rode an amazing little wave on up to $19.90-ish, before it caught a lag back down to 19.74/19.55 and sold me out right about there. Still, on 250 shares, that was a profit of $272.

I'm doing something nearly identical today. I won't touch it if it doesn't bounce up at all during the day; my emergency stop is set for 17 and I think that's been a healthy support level and if it hits that, shit's hit the fan already. But holding it for a day or two is smart; it'll touch on 20 again and then back back off. A stock like this is volatile yet generally so within a range and relatively predictable. Naturally, I can get myself burned with too cautious stops or bad trailing stop levels, or if the unthinkable happens and big news causes an epic gap. But for now, it's fun and a potentially good play.

Tomorrow's order:
BUY +250 TSRA TRSTP MARK+.10 MARK GTC WHEN TSRA MARK AT OR BELOW 18.55
SELL -250 TSRA TRSTP MARK-.16 MARK GTC TRG BY #46617 OCO #4661 WHEN TSRA MARK AT OR ABOVE 19.45
SELL -250 TSRA STP 17.00 GTC TRG BY #4661 OCO #46617

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

MOS Short Selling...

I've got to head to bed real soon so I'm going to keep this short. My brother loves Mosaic, a fertilizer company. Their performance is tightly bound to Potash prices so it presents an interesting study. Every time they've had a 4%+ drop in the past six months, it's been followed by another nearly 4% drop, at least in the intraday.

So I'm banking on that happening again.

Here's my play:
Sell -39 MOS @ 122.75
Buy +39 MOS STP TRG+126.00
Buy +39 MOS TRSTP MARK+1.50% WHEN MOS MARK AT OR BELOW 120.00

Maximum loss = $126.75, excluding any gaps and commissions.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Back...

Sorry for the lack of posts. I'm still jet-lagged. Got screwed by two Tessera plays that triggered and fired straight through my fucking stops. Lost about $160 on each, twice. Then watched it hit $18-ish after a dip in the $17s. Placed a buy order at $17.75 that never triggered because it shot through to almost $20. Hating it a bit about that right now.

Will be getting back into this way more actively next week. Liquidated Scottrade. Thinkorswim 4 life, etc.